As housing construction rages, buildable lots fall to pre-boom levels

Blog Post by: Jim Buchta

July 19, 2013 - 2:16 PM

There's plenty of evidence that housing construction is in the Twin Cities is in the midst of a serious recovery. We recently reported that building permits last month were the strongest since 2007. This week, the local office of Metrostudy released its quarterly report showing that the supply of buildable lots across the seven-county metro area has now fallen to just 28.2 months - slightly below pre-housing boom levels.

Here are a few other interesting and illuminating tidbits from the second-quarter report:

1,730 new homes were started, up 54.3 percent from the previous quarter and 46-percent higher than last year.

At the end of June 2013, there were 2,765 new housing units in inventory, up 13-percent from last quarter. Of that total, 2,139 units (77 percent) are under construction, 395 (14 percent) are finished vacant inventory and 231 (8 percent) are model homes.

Finished inventory is now at slightly below one month; the market is equilibrium when there are enough new houses to last 1.5 to 2 months.

There are 22,882 vacant developed lots throughout the 13-county metro, a 12-percent decline from last year.

There are 10,812 vacant developed lots throughout the seven-county metro, a decline of 18.1 percent compared to last year.

Ryan Jones, the director of the local Metrostudy office, said that the pressure is on to develop new lots.

“As activity continues to increase we will need to see substantial lot deliveries across the metro in order to meet demand,” said Jones.